Friday, May 27, 2016

Content is not usually your first thought when you look at Carl Andre’s famously reductive sculptures, but no one familiar with New Zealand art could walk past Andre’s Tau and Threshold (Element Series) without giving a thought to Colin McCahon. And it was not only a connection made by the Tau Cross that McCahon has made his own in NZ. There was also the Roman capital letter I that is the basis of McCahon’s Necessary Protection series. To add to the zeitgeist jitter these two works were both made in the same year of 1971.

Images: left, Carl Andre Tau and Threshold (Element Series) and right, Colin McCahon The days and nights in the wilderness showing the constant flow of light passing through the wall of death